Tin Mines & Sewage: Why Phuket’s Water Is Foul

PHUKET, Thailand -- Many
of Phuket's small lakes and tranquil lagoons began as
poisonous pits where greedy tin miners dug the earth,
extracted ore and left behind craters filled with
rainwater.

When miners belatedly laid down their
shovels and other equipment nearly 100 years ago, they
abandoned Phuket to a future scarred by a toxic acne of
rotted holes.

This isle's future appeared to difficult
to face, but something delightful happened.

Today,
people from around the world pay big money to gaze at those
watery ponds while relaxing at five-star resorts and spas,
little dreaming that some of the juicy scenery lays atop
ravaged earth.

Though the island cleaned up many of
its former mining sites, however, a different potential
doomsday now lurks which may turn Phuket into an island of
thirst and parched land.

"Phuket being an island,
there is always one concern which we call 'sea water
intrusion'," said Bradley E. Kenny, president and senior
environmental engineer of Thailand-based Environmental
Solutions and Protection Corp.

The worry comes
because lots of Phuket residents and businesses dig wells
to extract fresh water.

Another jingle -- about nature
abhorring a vacuum -- means the island's surrounding salt
water will find out about wells near the coast, and
silently ooze brackish fluid into the space where fresh
water was removed.

Do that enough times, with enough
coastal wells, and you can turn Phuket's underground rim
into Swiss cheese, flooded by the Andaman Sea.

The
wells then become as salty as a Ritz cracker, and any ice
made from it can taste like frozen sweat.

"The prime
example of that, close to here, is Phi Phi Island," Mr.
Kenny said in an interview at his Phuket office.

"Five
or six years ago, the deep wells on Phi Phi Island produced
the same quality of water that we now get here on Phuket.
But because of all the resorts that were built, and because
it is a smaller island, there is now not one single deep
well on Phi Phi Island that doesn't have salt water
intrusion.

"The wells now on Phi Phi Island are up to
2,000 to 3,000 p.p.m. [parts per million] of salt, which
makes the water unusable," he said.

The relentless
salt invasion isn't Phuket's only drinking problem.

Bacteria -- single-celled microorganisms which can be
parasites if they like you enough -- are responsible for
much of the world's disease.

Similar to tourists who
flock to Phuket to enjoy a warm, succulent ambiance, lots
of bacteria also love Phuket, especially for microscopic
water sports.

"The biggest problem [with Phuket's
drinking water] is bacteriological, and that is mostly the
result of improperly installed or non-functioning septic
tank systems or small home waste-water systems," Mr. Kenny
said.

Bacteria "could be leaking from the septic tank
into the ground, which then gets into other ground water
sources -- shallow wells, deep wells -- and it could be
leaking into rivers or streams and getting into some of the
lakes and reservoirs.

There probably are cases of mild
dysentery and things like this, that could be attributed to
the bacteriological problem in the water," the American
environmentalist said.

Phuket town and Patong beach
have municipal waste-water systems. But the rest of this
gorgeous island has to fend for itself every time it wants
to quench its thirst with clear, clean water.

The good
news is Phuket is low-tech and doesn't have much industry
and thus does not suffer from major industrial pollution.

The bad news is all those abandoned tin mines are out there,
like ghostly black holes.

Lakes which filled the pits
are now soaking gunk-infested sediment from the mining
process.

Scoop up some lake water and you might find
higher than international standards allow for drinking
water in terms of aluminum and, in some places, arsenic.

"The tin mining has been so long gone -- 70 or 80 years ago
-- that I believe probably most of the arsenic has settled
down, [but] if there was some research done into the
bottoms of these lakes, I believe they would find some
elevated arsenic levels," Mr. Kenny said. A more
immediate threat appears to be aluminum, which has been
linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Aluminum is abundant on
Phuket because that's the way the geology of the island
formed millions of years ago.

It now threatens
underground wells, pipes and sediment.

More recently,
nitrates have infiltrated Phuket's water supply, often from
too much fertilizer pampering golf courses and rubber
plantations.

Nitrates can especially target kids, get
in their blood system and, in some cases, cause "blue baby
syndrome" in which a infant can turn blue because nitrates
rob the bloodstream of oxygen.

"In general, because of
the real lack of industry, the water quality in Phuket is
quite good, surprisingly good," Mr. Kenny said.

To
protect the future supply, the "tin mine lakes" will need
special care.

If you are looking for something to do
on your holiday to combine scenic views, relaxation and a
bit of ecology, take a look at the inland lagoons along
Bang Tao Bay and you'll see what some water experts hail as
the rippling wave of Phuket's future.

Some of the most
luxurious resorts lined up along Bang Tao Beach offer their
guests the joys of inland lagoons.

Or, as the five
resorts which comprise Laguna Phuket like to boast in their
brochure: "The resorts are linked by sparkling lagoons."

Cute, Thai-style boats shuttle guests across the blue water
which offers a "lagoon-side function venue," "lagoon
dining" and rooms with a "lagoon view" along "the placid
water of dreamy lagoons."

Note there is no mention of
environmental mutation.

"Laguna in Bang Tao Bay? This
whole area was a tin mine area and that is a masterpiece of
an environmental story, how they transformed that land,"
Mr. Kenny said.

"Basically, that land was
environmentally condemned because of the extensive tin
mining. So that complex of hotels bought the land and
reconditioned it and now it is some of the most successful
property on the island," he said.

Engineers dredged
the bottoms of the lakes, brought in topsoil and
reconditioned the land because they perceived the biggest
problem not to be from contaminants, but the loss of
topsoil as a result of the mining.

All a result, not
much was growing on the sites. Any lake that didn't want
to be a watery grave needed help to make it lively. Today,
the success of their cleanup efforts at Laguna Phuket are
astounding.

Actually, according to some surveys of
water tables, there is plenty of fresh water under Phuket.
The vital reservoirs which are already in place can, if
necessary, be multiplied with fresh construction.

"But the amount of bacteria we see in Phuket is more than
what I would consider normal due to improperly installed
waste-water treatment systems," Mr. Kenny warned.

To
freshen fluid before it hits your mouth's salivary system,
you can chlorinate and then de-chlorinate it and then pour
it through a "reverse-osmosis" system which acts like a
molecular-level sieve to block bacteria and other
monsters.

You can also pray to the rain gods, because
Phuket is virtually dependent solely on rainfall.

Until the year 2010, Phuket probably won't suffer too many
water woes. After that, it may turn into crunch time if
the population staggers forward at today's rate of
growth.

Amid all the talk of salty water, bacteria and
contaminants, the subject of future "water for sale" is
already making some investors drool.

"There are a lot
of privately-owned old tin mines from which people sell
that water," Mr. Kenny said, suddenly turning glum.
"Usually it is untreated water. Most of the resorts that are
buying it have their own treatment systems."

Only a
lucky sliver of this island -- mostly Phuket town and
Patong -- is part of any municipal water system, which
enables them to turn on the tap and pay the piper.

For future fluid in areas where there is no tap water, the
hope is to rehabilitate more former tin mine lakes, so that
water could be trucked to where it is needed.

But have
you ever counted how many drops fit in a truck's water tank?
Mr. Kenny, who also sells de-salination systems, insists
salt-removal is much better than trucking.

"It is cost
efficient. Components would come from overseas, sure, but
the final assembly and manufacturing would be right here.
The [de-salination] membranes are almost all manufactured
in the U.S., but the pressure vessels -- because this
operates at high pressure -- are already made in Thailand.
All the electronics, all the controls, the frame,
everything, would be locally made," he said.

"When
people hear about de-salination, they don't know the
advances that have been made in technology within the past
three or four years. They think of huge plants that take a
lot of man-power and a lot of skills to operate and that it
might be expensive. But it is just not true. Technology in
de-salination has moved forward, in many ways, just as
technology in IT," he said, referring to the recent
advances in information technology.

"Patong is the
only place where we have announced that tap water is safe
to drink because the distance from treatment to point of
consumption is short, so the water is less likely to be
contaminated before it comes out of the tap," Dr. Jessada
Chaikunrat, deputy chief of Phuket's Provincial Public
Health Office, was recently quoted as saying.

"We
have not yet declared water in other places safe to drink
because we are not sure."

*****

Richard S. Ehrlich, a freelance journalist who has reported
news from Asia for the past 25 years, is co-author of the
non-fiction book, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters
to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. His
web page is
http://www.geocities.com/glossograph/

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